Fusion 360. What is it? Why should I care? Also, wasn’t it in Inventor like 5 years ago? Doesn’t it have something to do with the cloud?

You have questions. We’re here to help.

Fusion 360 is already a powerful product development tool. With a short development and release cycle, the product changes 10x faster than traditional CAD platforms. Have an idea? Let them know! Autodesk is building this new platform from the ground up for the next generation of CAD, and using your input to make it better for you.

What kind of features and development does this enable? Well, keep coming back here to find out. This blog will feature discoveries and features from D3’s expert team of designers, CAM specialists, and simulation gurus.

Will Fusion 360 replace my current program? This is a valid question, as Autodesk does retire and replace software from time to time. The real answer is that nobody knows the future. The more meaningful answer is if so, not anytime soon. Fusion 360 is an addition to the catalog of Autodesk products, not a replacement. Its best play might be using it alongside your existing CAD tools, whether they’re Autodesk or not! As we hope you’ll see through the pages of this blog, Fusion 360 is a powerful, modern platform, and worth keeping up with.

Why is Fusion 360 so cheap? Does that mean it’s no good? As a new and disruptive product, Fusion is offered for an extremely competitive price. There are a few levels of the product you can purchase, but they are all a great value for the features you get. And if you’re a student or hobbyist, well you can start using Fusion completely free right now! We think you’ll find that it is indeed a very powerful and relevant set of tools for the manufacturing and design world.

Who’s writing this blog anyway? Why should I care about their opinion? Well, maybe you shouldn’t. Technology and honest feedback may not be for everyone, but if you’re interested in keeping up with the latest in innovative and disruptive design and manufacturing technology out there, this is the place. D3’s technical team is not here to pass along marketing fluff, but to help you succeed. This blog will pull no punches in giving you our honest evaluation and experiences on how Fusion will or will not fit into certain workflows or industries. We hope this gives you a sense of this new technology now and into the future.

Have any questions or comments? Feel free to join in the discussion at D3’s website! Ask any questions, give feedback. We welcome your voice.

If you haven’t opened Fusion 360 for a few days, you may be missing out on the latest huge update in Fusion 360! It came to us on March 1st.

Just earlier that day I hosted a webinar on Fusion & traditional CAD (which you can watch here). Now, I’m not exactly claiming that it was prophetic, but there is proof to be found that I discussed some things in the webinar specifically that were out of date just hours later… The crazy fast update cadence of Fusion 360 is one of my favorite parts of the whole platform. Can I really tell the future, or does Fusion 360 just update that fast? I’ll let you decide.

So, what’s new? Your feedback made it loud and clear that some immediate updates were needed in drawings. They have added multi-sheet drawings, custom tables, and ordinate dimensions to the toolset. Also, for assemblies you can now suppress from the BOM or just hide parts out of views as needed.

There were many other updates too. One of my favorites: you can now create sub-folders to organize bodies into groups in a complex model. What updates do you think are still needed in drawings, or any other part of Fusion 360?

]]>https://www10.mcadcafe.com/blogs/guest/2017/03/14/with-fusion-360-you-can-predict-the-future/feed/045Mobile Workstations – More Portable, More Powerful, More Dependablehttps://www10.mcadcafe.com/blogs/guest/2015/06/16/mobile-workstations-more-portable-more-powerful-more-dependable/
https://www10.mcadcafe.com/blogs/guest/2015/06/16/mobile-workstations-more-portable-more-powerful-more-dependable/#respondTue, 16 Jun 2015 16:22:57 +0000http://www10.mcadcafe.com/blogs/guest/?p=36CAD designers understand the importance of having a workstation capable of meeting the demands of their resource-intensive applications. Yet many designers have been reluctant to invest in mobile technology in addition to their desktop machines. As powerful as mobile technology has become, it has historically struggled to match the performance and reliability of a high-powered desktop workstation, leaving designers looking to take their demanding CAD applications into the field with difficult choices.

But that’s changing.

In recent years, mobile workstations have gained ground in their ability to serve as complementary solutions. Here are a few reasons why you may want to rethink investing in a mobile workstation.

1)Portable Machines are Becoming More Portable

Today’s mobile workstations are thinner and lighter than they’ve ever been, and are being built with durability in mind using materials that protect vital machine components even under the toughest conditions. Additionally, battery life has reached the point of giving engineers all-day performance and then some, while thermal management systems ensure system cooling is at an optimal level for the components included, reducing the risk of failure. Portable machines have become more portable, making them, if not a replacement for the desktop workstation, at least a good complement for engineers in the field.

2) ISV Certification and High-Quality Display

Mobile workstations are now coming certified to run applications that include ICEM, 3ds Max, Creo Concept, Alias, CATIA, Siemens NX and others, providing designers with advanced features such as full-screen anti-aliasing, more advanced and realistic shading and other critical functionality. And not only can these machines provide these features, but they can also render them in amazing quality, with HD displays and up to 4K resolution that showcases their designs in pristine detail.

3) Performance is Catching Up

With innovations like the newest Intel® mobile processors and NVIDIA® Quadro® GPU technology, performance on these machines is attaining previously unachievable levels, with simple upgrades transforming laptops into full-fledged mobile workstations. Additionally, storage technology is quickly catching up to its desktop brethren, with the latest SSD memory and PCIe connectivity for faster data access. This means mobile workstations are now capable of running the most demanding CAD applications, from AutoCad and SolidWorks to CATIA and NX. Although these mobile workstations haven’t quite attained the level of the highest-end desktop workstations, they can serve as an attractive complement for engineers who need to take their work on the go and don’t want to sacrifice productivity on the road.

Though no one will confuse a mobile workstation with its high-end desktop counterpart, these systems are becoming more powerful, more portable and more affordable with each passing year, to the point where many are now seen as viable solutions for CAD engineers looking to run the most resource-intensive applications on the go. If you’ve been reluctant in the past to invest in a mobile workstation to handle your CAD workload, consider taking another look.

]]>https://www10.mcadcafe.com/blogs/guest/2015/06/16/mobile-workstations-more-portable-more-powerful-more-dependable/feed/036Workstation Upgrades – Why Do I Need to Upgrade, and When is the Optimal Time to Do So?https://www10.mcadcafe.com/blogs/guest/2015/01/30/workstation-upgrades-why-do-i-need-to-upgrade-and-when-is-the-optimal-time-to-do-so/
https://www10.mcadcafe.com/blogs/guest/2015/01/30/workstation-upgrades-why-do-i-need-to-upgrade-and-when-is-the-optimal-time-to-do-so/#respondFri, 30 Jan 2015 23:57:28 +0000http://www10.mcadcafe.com/blogs/guest/?p=31Just like your recurring six-month dental check-up is critical to ensuring your oral health or your 6,000-mile oil change is key to keeping your engine running smoothly, upgrading your workstation is crucial to the health of your business. Yet in your experience using CAD applications, have you ever thought about why you need to upgrade your workstation, and if there is a real timetable you should follow? If so, here are four things to consider:

1) Design and creation activities are critical to your success, as they are the lynchpin of your competitive advantage. This starts with you, the engineer and/or creative person who conceive the idea and the design. In addition, it includes the methods you use to design it, the software you use and the hardware that runs the software. Also critical is how fast you design and create, as you can’t afford to get behind the competition or miss a critical due date. All these factors combine to give you a competitive edge. Both creation and schedules are two elements that help ensure your success.

2) Nothing is stagnant in this world, and this is true for the world of design and creativity. For example, new features are constantly being added to your design and the design is being shared in new ways, using software like Product Life Cycle Management. Designers learn more from organizations like manufacturing and adapt their designs according to the latest technology trends available. Additionally, the software you use changes, new revisions come out, new fixes and even additional software features to take into account. Designers want to know more about their design decisions and attach histories and notes to the design files. All of this results in the creation of larger 3D models – in fact, if you think back, 3D files have continually grown larger over time. The large files of just three years ago are considered average – even small – by today’s standards. This has been the case for a long time, as it is estimated that 3D files double in size every two to three years.

3) Larger design files have a major impact on designers, as well as larger application sizes. The newer applications and the larger files, when run on older systems, cause everything to bog down. The larger files and applications take longer to process in the CPU and graphics card; it takes more memory, and more storage then previous model sizes and applications. This happens gradually, so many designers don’t notice it changing. We see this change as our systems growing slower when, in fact, it’s the models and applications that have gotten larger.

4) Hardware changes generally occur on a three-year cycle. Workstations are getting faster, enabling them to handle the larger and more complex load of files and updated applications and technologies. These newer workstations are exponentially faster than those of just three years ago. Not only do they handle the load engineers require, but they also improve design productivity by allowing designers to get more done in a quicker amount of time.

Over time, 3D file sizes increase, applications and software update and technologies change and grow. The extra load on workstations causes the system to respond more slowly. To compensate for the industry growth, workstations are being continually updated to meet the latest technological advances in this industry, as new technology is created to meet the demands of today’s (and tomorrow’s) applications. Quicker refreshes in hardware provide added productivity to the design cycle, allowing more design iterations to be created in the same time period. This enables companies to stay competitive and create even more amazing products. By using the above guidelines and keeping mind a three-year refresh timetable for your workstation technology, you can help stay ahead of changes in application performance and ensure that you are always equipped to handle the workload.

Early product failures and product recalls are very costly. They result in loss of revenue, litigation, and brand devaluation among others. Hardware recalls are often costlier than software recalls as software patches can be easily downloaded and installed once flaws come to light. But recalls and early product failures tend to happen over and over again. Why? Because engineering teams are constantly under the gun to improve product performance, reduce form factors, and reduce time to market, all while cutting costs. In order to mitigate risk engineers need to develop a deeper understanding of the product behavior under real operating conditions and quickly evaluate design trade-offs based on overall system behavior.

Physical tests provide an excellent means to understand product behavior. However, physical testing is expensive and time consuming. Simulation provides a cheaper and faster alternative to physical tests. It is critical to strike the right balance between physical tests and simulation during product development. In order to get the maximum bang for your buck, simulations should be deployed starting early in the design cycle when physical prototypes are not available and the design is not fully developed. The earlier you find flaws, the earlier you can fix them. Since the cost of fixing flaws grows exponentially through the design cycle (figure below), identifying and fixing design flaws early in the design cycle is super critical.

Relative cost of fixing errors in embedded systems

Not all simulation tools are created equal. You don’t need any answer. You need theright answer. For that, you need simulation tools that most closely depict reality. And you need answers fast. Hence you need product testing and validation tools with industry leading physics and solver technology to obtain accurate solutions faster in order to help you improve product design, ensure product reliability and reduce time to market. Accurate depiction of material behavior and physics of failure are essential to obtaining realistic results. Such capabilities are critical in predicting the behavior of materials such as glass, adhesives, and polymers that have high propensity for damage.

Consumer electronic products, especially mobile and portable devices such as smartphones, tablets and laptops, are subjected to a variety of operating conditions. The devices need to be designed to protect them from damage. Engineers need to ensure that “portable” doesn’t mean “breakable.”

The challenge is to design a light-weight product that can withstand not just the loading cycles associated with regular usage, but also abusive loading scenarios that are encountered less frequently (According to surveys and insurance claim statistics, drop and water damage constitute the two most frequent causes of damage for mobile devices.). Simulation should be employed at the ideation, product development, and failure analysis stages in order to improve product quality and reduce time to market. Refer to this case study to learn how a leading manufacturer of consumer electronics used simulation to improve the keystroke feel and to enhance frame rigidity while reducing weight .

While drop during daily usage is a concern for mobile devices, transportation drops are the main concern for office equipment. The engineers are faced with the challenge of identifying the structural members that are most susceptible to damage and to improve their damage resistance while reducing the overall weight of the structure. Refer to the ebook below to know how a leading manufacturer of office equipment designed a low cost printer that can withstand a series of transportation drop tests.

The examples above provide a snapshot of applications leveraging SIMULIA Abaqus technology to successfully improve product durability while satisfying other constraints such as weight and cost.

More example related to how engineering teams are using virtual testing to predict stresses, optimize design performance and reduce time to market can be read here

]]>https://www10.mcadcafe.com/blogs/guest/2014/09/15/improving-the-reliability-of-consumer-electronics-products-through-realistic-simulation/feed/021The Dell Precision M2800 Mobile Workstation is Available to Help Inspire Innovation for Design Professionals and Studentshttps://www10.mcadcafe.com/blogs/guest/2014/05/01/the-dell-precision-m2800-mobile-workstation-is-available-to-help-inspire-innovation-for-design-professionals-and-students/
https://www10.mcadcafe.com/blogs/guest/2014/05/01/the-dell-precision-m2800-mobile-workstation-is-available-to-help-inspire-innovation-for-design-professionals-and-students/#respondThu, 01 May 2014 18:15:17 +0000http://www10.mcadcafe.com/blogs/guest/?p=15The evolution of digital content creation has unleashed the productivity of engineers, designers, creative professionals and students everywhere, but it has also set corresponding expectations incredibly high for that productivity as well, making it crucial for those individuals to use the proper tools to help their visions to come to life. Professional and aspiring engineers and designers cannot do their job these days without specialized applications for 3D modeling, digital content creation, and computer aided engineering and design such asAdobe Creative Cloud andAutoCAD. The problem is, for some, they’re being forced to run these applications on notebooks or desktops that don’t have enough power to generate the performance they need because they can’t afford a traditional workstation.

Dell Precision M2800

If small businesses or individuals can’t afford the tools larger organizations normally can to run the demanding applications they need to do their job, these same students and design professionals are often forced to work around the clock to complete these projects within their stated deadlines while staying competitive. Making these kinds of compromises not only has the potential to negatively affect the quality of work these customers are able to produce, but it can also negatively and unnecessarily affect their quality of life as well. Enabling organizations with the right tool can help them complete their project within their stated deadlines while staying competitive.

Since its inception nearly 30 years ago, Dell has been committed to providing more people greater access to technology.The Dell Precision M2800is our answer to this mission, democratizing access to professional-quality creation and enabling customers who need the capabilities of a workstation at an affordable solution that their budgets can accommodate. Now our budget-minded customers who need anISV-certifiedsystem andprofessional-grade graphicscan maximize their creative capabilities wherever they are and help them to bridge the gap between commercial laptops and mobile workstations without unnecessary cost barriers standing in their way.

The 15.6” mobile workstation is ISV-certified for leading applications such asAutodesk AutoCAD,Inventor, andRevit, SolidworksandPTC Creo, among many others. The M2800 has a choice of fourth-generation Intel Core i5 or i7 processors to have the battery and power to compliment handling massive amounts of data and an AMD FirePro W4170M graphics card to do the rendering to keep up with requirements on the go.

Providing the peace of mind that you can bring your vision to a reality wherever you go with the reliability and dependability of Dell workstations, the M2800 features theDell Precision Performance Optimizer(DPPO) which automatically adjusts system settings for optimizing specific applications. With DPPO, customers have the intelligence of automatic systems tuning maximizing performance on key, select applications. For the customers we designed the M2800 to serve, this is a particularly evolutionary feature as, in many cases, these customers used notebooks that didn’t allow them even the cursory level performance they needed for the applications they require. The M2800 not only gives them that performance, but with DPPO, it also optimizes its settings so in most cases, they’ll be saving tremendous amounts of time and able to increase the rate they’re able to complete complex projects.

]]>https://www10.mcadcafe.com/blogs/guest/2014/05/01/the-dell-precision-m2800-mobile-workstation-is-available-to-help-inspire-innovation-for-design-professionals-and-students/feed/015A Tail of Innovationhttps://www10.mcadcafe.com/blogs/guest/2014/04/07/a-tail-of-innovation/
https://www10.mcadcafe.com/blogs/guest/2014/04/07/a-tail-of-innovation/#respondMon, 07 Apr 2014 22:05:53 +0000http://www10.mcadcafe.com/blogs/guest/?p=9Israel Wygnanski‘s active flow control systems may well be pushing the aircraft industry to the brink of the next major shift in design.

Commercial airplanes tend to have oversized tails to help the pilots maintain control over the aircraft in case of an engine failure. (Image courtesy of Boeing)

Wygnanski has been developing, testing and perfecting active flow control technology for 40 years. For the last four years, he has worked with Emilio Graff, director of the Lucas Wind Tunnel at the California Institute of Technology, creating active flow control technology that promises to usher in smaller, lighter, quieter, more efficient airplanes. Active flow control refers to the manipulation of a flow field – through the addition of energy – to improve the performance of a solid body moving in a fluid, such as an airplane moving through the air.

Israel Wygnanski (left), professor of aerospace and mechanical engineering, and Caltech collaborator Emilio Graff introduced and developed the active flow control system tested recently on this Boeing 757 vertical tail in the wind tunnel at NASA’s Ames Research Center. (Photo courtesy of NASA Ames Research Center)

Their research led to NASA’s Ames Research Center wind tunnelin California. There, tests on a full-size Boeing 757 vertical tail outfitted with 37 tiny sweeping jet actuators confirmed in November that the system was up to the job of manipulating air flow enough to allow for smaller, lower-drag vertical tails on jet airliners.

Wygnanski, a private pilot, spotted the 25-foot-tall Boeing 757 tail in an Arizona boneyard on one of his flights between Tucson and California while working on the project with Graff.

“I flew over Marana and saw two newly junked 757s at the airpark, so we used the actual tail as our model.”

Their vertical tail active flow control system is scheduled to fly on Boeing’s ecoDemonstrator 757 in 2015.

Control by design

To be at their most efficient, produce the least amount of drag and use the least amount of fuel, airplanes could be designed as flying wings like the manta ray or have smaller wings and tails. The only reason the vertical tail is so big is that the pilot needs it to control the plane in the rare instance of engine failure, particularly at takeoff.

“Otherwise the large tail is a parasite,” said Wygnanski.

Under normal flying conditions, a smaller, lighter tail would provide the directional control needed.

When an engine fails, the thrust comes from the opposite side of the airplane. To compensate for the asymmetrical thrust, the rudder on the vertical tail is deflected to generate side force for directional control. The bigger the surface of the vertical tail and its rudder, the more force that can be exerted.

Nevertheless “you can use an oscillatory thrust, or momentum input, in place of the large tail,” which is what the jet actuators tested on the 757 tail accomplished, Wygnanski said.

The jet actuators at the trailing edge of the Boeing 757 vertical stabilizer, the stationary part of the vertical tail, force air back and forth in a sweeping motion, like an oscillating electric fan, only at hundreds of cycles per second, across the movable rudder. The energized airflow keeps the air attached to the surface at greater deflection angles, meaning that a smaller surface area can be as effective as a larger one in creating the force needed to control the airplane.

Tilt-rotor tests

A tilt-rotor aircraft usually takes off vertically – for example, from a ship’s deck – then its rotors tilt forward to fly like a conventional plane. The problem is that the wake of the rotor impinges on the wing from above, generating a download force. That download can substantially limit payload at vertical takeoff. The more force pushing down the aircraft, the less weight it can carry.

So a flow control system was developed whereby simple actuators, with no moving parts on the wings, alleviated the download and increased lift.

Wygnanski’s active flow control technology is an integral part of development of highly complex tilt-rotor aircraft that hover like helicopters and fly like planes. It was used in a series of download reduction flight tests in 2003 on a XV-15 tilt-rotor aircraft that demonstrated for the first time the effectiveness of active flow control technology in full-scale flight.

“This was the first real demonstration of the active flow control principle on an airplane,” Wygnanski said. “It was my 68th birthday when it first flew, and it was very exciting.”

]]>https://www10.mcadcafe.com/blogs/guest/2014/04/07/a-tail-of-innovation/feed/09Sketch Auto-Scale – What’s New in SolidWorks 2014https://www10.mcadcafe.com/blogs/guest/2014/03/25/sketch-auto-scale-whats-new-in-solidworks-2014/
https://www10.mcadcafe.com/blogs/guest/2014/03/25/sketch-auto-scale-whats-new-in-solidworks-2014/#respondTue, 25 Mar 2014 17:46:18 +0000http://www10.mcadcafe.com/blogs/guest/?p=6One big difference between a seasoned SolidWorks user and an entry-level CAD nerd is that the former can get in and out of sketches a lot faster (in fact, that is pretty much the hardest part of the CSWA test). Whether you realize it or not, as you get more and more time sketching you “learn” how hard you can push the sketcher without having it blow up in your face. The seasoned SolidWorks user employs a highly valued tip-toe act where they carefully sketch things at approximately the proper size and then choose wisely what dimensions are going to get placed first. Otherwise this …

becomes this:

If that hasn’t happened to you then either you have never actually used SolidWorks and are doing just fine pretending, or you are a true CAD jock, too cool for school and naturally inclined to somehow make the most daunting tasks look simple. However, in SolidWorks 2014 the developers at Dassault Systèmes included a very welcome enhancement for the rest of us: the Sketch Auto-Scale functionality. New users are going to love it; seasoned users are going to hide it from their bosses because the new guys will be sketching like pros in no time.

Here is how it works: When you add the firstdimension to any sketch before the first feature, SolidWorks automatically resizes all entities in that sketchin order to maintain the proper proportions. Furthermore, your zoom and view perspective remains unchanged so it looks like nothing happens. I would include a screenshot but you would be hard pressed to find a difference between the sketch before and after a dimension is placed (other than the fact that there is a dimension there).

This sketch auto-scale functionality is a huge game changer because now, in your first sketch all you have to worry about is getting your sketch entities proportioned about right relative to each other, no more paying attention to your zoom perspective and the actual size of those entities. This makes sketching faster and more efficient while requiring less user interaction, this is most definitely my favorite enhancement in SolidWorks 2014.

>> Check out this video from SolidWorks Product Manager Todd Domke about another useful function – the Sketch Picture Scale Tool, which makes it easy for users to properly scale the size and position of images inserted into a sketch.